INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Mother2Hens]

M2h - she thought it looked as though one of the larger Roos pounced on him. She did an X-ray and there was a part of his spine that looked fractured and had swelling. She didn't know if he would recover and said if it were hers she'd put it down for quality of life issues, etc. (sigh). She did understand my concern for disease and worked out the necropsy with purdue. I am so torn up. I need to toughen up. I know the chances of things going awry go way up when you acquire as many birds as I did this year. It's just hard!

Thanks everyone for the condolences and for letting me vent my concerns about disease etc. I appreciate it

julie0477~ I was a wreck when I went through Violet's injury care and later having to be put to sleep at the vet. Although I'm thrilled to have little Bonbon, I still feel sad about Violet. I guess it's a good sign that we have feelings! I suppose the good news for you is that it's not likely that your roo had an illness and at least you'll find out for sure. Take care!

kabhyper1~ I've never had or seen a broody hen, but I'd say Broody! It's very cute how she tucks the eggs under her fluffy skirt.
Are those handmade drapes with a tiny egg print surrounding Ms. Broody's boudoir?


Posted by Sally~ For good reasons too BYC wants posters to stay here and support their advertisers.
Sally~ I use AdBlock and never see any ads. It's great!! (I feel a little guilty since I'm in the advertising field)

 

[Mother2Hens]

CRSelvey~ So your husband literally "held down the fort" while you were at the Irish Festival!

Btw~ I like the pergola on the run!
Thunder Chicken~ Very interesting and humorous story about your Bad Bad Hen. Hope her glasses are rose-colored!

 

[PeacefulWalls]

Here in Indy, there has been a rainfall debit the last 6 weeks, but I suspect it is all being diverted elsewhere due to John's rather large, state-wide tinfoil hat. We get enough dribbles thru it to keep it green enough, unlike last year where we there was a huge loss of pine trees in the county.

It'd be great if the rain would roll off the brim of his hat & land on us -- maybe if he tilts his head just right... I checked the forecast again a few minutes ago & maybe our thoughts of a raindance worked -- there are actually some raindrops showing up for a few days now. Hopefully they won't disappear again!

 

[PeacefulWalls]

I just got mine planted two weeks ago. Yay I have plants, they are not very big, but they have broke though! Hopefully they will thrive. I think you may still have some time, worth a shot anyway.

I made sure I got it done this afternoon finally. Spinach, lettuce, kohlrabi, kale, chard, bok choy & snow peas. I know some of them might not have a long enough growing season anymore, but even if there's just smaller greens the rabbits can get a small treat and the chickens will appreciate the rest.

 

[Old Salt 1945]

Gravity is not his friend.

Cheryl

Ordinary gravity is not the problem.

It's the sudden spurts of unusually strong gravity that yank things out of your hand that are the problem.

John

 

[gunchief25]

Can anyone tell me what breed these are?

 

[Too Fast]

Awesome. That's hilarious.

I'm pretty sure Kiniska is serious about bleaching your feet and wearing croc's. I wear the croc's all the time. I can wash them with dish soap and let them air dry. Very comfortable. Never have bleached my feet though.

I was being serious also. I'm posting because I thought the shoe covers would work if you threw them away at the site you wore them and then put on a new set at the next site. If you don't have any of the cool crocks (I don't). Definitely don't want to spread things from flock to flock.

Oh my goodness, I just can't keep up in the last couple of days. I tried and you guys were so kind to be busy this weekend and then BAM. I was lost. I just wanted to post some pics of progress and other things. I hope you like them.

When I was having a good time with our kids at the Indy Irish Fest, this is what my DH was doing. He finished all of the shingles on the roof (and posed like a goofball for me), put the door up on the run, added pergola boards to the top of the run, and finished the wire. WOW. I hope to NEVER see him up on a roof again. Gravity is not his friend.

On Sunday I added all the hangers to keep the dirt out of the food, added roosts, and finished some details. As you can tell, I hadn't cleaned the coop up yet. Sorry about that.

So I am not sure how I feel about the pergola-ish boards on top of the run, but I'm still thinking on it. My DH thought I'd love it, so I am working on it. Seems kind of busy, but now I can grow some grapes climbing roses on the coop ;-). As long as it also goes on the run extension, it should be good. I still need to bury that section of wire and plant some evergreens there.

This is the waspinator thing I was telling you guys about. Its working to keep away the wasps and bees, but the hornets are not bothered at all. I might need to move it to the other side of the coop.


This is the reason that I need to plant the wire!! His name is definitely MAX now and he wants my chickens BAD. I really like him though, so we are trying to figure out how to keep everyone happy.
I know I have told you guys that a lady down the street has the cutest coop. It looks like a very large dog house, but its been modified. I stopped and talked to her today and she got the plans out of a gardening book. Its got big wheels on the back and it holds her 5 hens just fine. CUTE

So, now that the roof is up and the trim is on, we decided that we hated the white paint because it showed too much dirt. Now the coop is light tan and dark burgundy/brown (ok, maybe purplish) trim. Its so much better. Once the paint is done, I have permission to start the extension. He just needs to finish the cupola and I think that's it...except for putting away the tools. That happens this coming weekend.

I hope you are having a great week everyone!
Cheryl

Love the roof. I was going to use regular asphault shingles, then my DW came home with the cedar shakes. Takes longer to install, but the finished look is awesome. Your DH looks like a stuffed hawk on the roof, taking a break from eating too many chickens,

I posted about my feather pecking problem a long while back, I think end of July or first of August. I bought pinless peepers back then but never used them. I blue-koted the poor White Rock that was getting the most abuse and she has recovered pretty well since then. Still ugly but at least no red skin. I let the girls out Sunday as promised to see how they would do in the backyard and they loved it. Then my wife noticed one of the Red Sex-Links had a severe case of feather pecking that you couldn't see unless you looked really close. It was covered by other feathers and has since gotten much worse because it started to bleed and most of the flock was pecking her. I blue-koted her Sunday and put her in a cage with a roost, food, and water for the night and let her out Monday on her own. Later I let the rest out to join her to see how it would go.

I thought it was going well and then, when I thought I could trust them, they started pecking her again. I grabbed the worst offender, the White Rock at the top of the pecking order, and put her in the cage instead. This revealed a lot. For the first time, all of the rest of the flock stayed in the coop area together for the night, including the new EE's that I added. When I got home today, my injured one was still being pecked because the blood was attracting them. SallyInIndiana had already told me that I should keep the bully secluded but that wasn't going to fix the problem. I only have one cage. I read that you should keep the injured one secluded until they heal. So I decided to try the peepers on the bully and seclude the injured one. I put the peepers on the White Rock, let them all loose in the yard, and watched them to see how things went. The peepers seem to work. I saw the EEs attack the the peepered bird a couple of times but I don't know if it was retaliation or not. I am guessing it was. Those poor EEs deserved to give some payback.

It looks like I found my bully and have shaken up the pecking order. With the injured one in the cage, the rest are all still inside the coop area for the night with the peepered one on a separate roost (different). I am hoping that the injured one heals and they all behave. I will keep you posted if I have success. Now for your entertainment, pictures of the peepered bully. It took a lot of pictures to get a good one. She is a bad, bad girl.



See how nice her tail feathers are compared to her friends?



She has a new outlook now.



Love that she doesn't have a feather-pecked tail, like the rest of the flock.



Another good look at the new specks.

After a few days of uncertainty, I made a decision and I am posting this to document what I am trying. Maybe it will help someone else but it is not a recommendation. I think you have to try something different when nothing else seems to work. Btw, I am still getting 6-7 eggs a day. The injured one even laid an egg in the cage. Bully was not so generous.

She has some cute glasses now, eh? I love the drawn in eyelashes. How do they stay on? The specks, not the drawn-on lashes lol. And how hard was it to put them on the hen?

 

[Kiniska]

CRSelvy Love your coop! Goof ball husbands are the best aren't they?

Everyone else.
About the shoe covers. Yes I am serious about them not being effective. At the risk of sounding uppity, please keep in mind I work in a laboratory research environment. So my chicken knowledge may be suspect, by when it comes to keeping germs and bugs at bay I am your girl. The shoe covers in the picture are cloth. That makes them porous. Basically, they are not a good barrier.

You can buy solid plastic covers, but they rip easily. There is the added problem that you have to touch the shoes in order to put the covers on. That contaminates your hands. Then you need to thoroughly wash your hands. Don't cheat and use hand sanitizer. I won't go into it, but that stuff is a waste of money.

So, can you use shoe covers? Sure.
Are they effective at controlling the spread of disease? Absolutely not.
Are they better than nothing? Debatable.

I say invest a few dollars more and get some cheap clogs or crocks dedicated just to the coop. Have your visitors switch shoes to enter the coop. Best case scenario, they also step into a foot bath of some sort before entering.

That is my buck fifty worth for you all.

 

[kabhyper1]

M2H, I have curtains over all of my nesting boxes for comfort for the hens, and it also keeps the other chickens from sleeping in the nesting boxes. The material is just the little individual squares of fabric you can get pretty much anywhere and I used scissors to shred them a little so they weren't so solid. They seem to keep the nesting boxes cleaner. Plus it helps keep a broody hen feeling secure. I went and checked her this morning and she is in a trance, so I will probably have to pick her up and take her out to do her business today.

Crselvey Your coop is beautiful!

Thunder chicken, have you thought about removing your bully for a week or two, after your little victim is healed and frees up the cage, and re-introducing her? It would definitely put her in a lower place in the flock and maybe she would stop picking. Also she may be bored. I found throwing treats like scratch, or a poultry block in the coop, places to scratch around, keeps them from getting bored. Just some thoughts, I'm new at this.

 

[Kiniska]

M2H, I have curtains over all of my nesting boxes for comfort for the hens, and it also keeps the other chickens from sleeping in the nesting boxes. The material is just the little  individual squares of fabric you can get pretty much anywhere and I used scissors to shred them a little so they weren't so solid. They seem to keep the nesting boxes cleaner. Plus it helps keep a broody hen feeling secure. I went and checked her this morning and she is in a trance, so I will probably have to pick her up and take her out to do her business today.

The curtains are a great idea! I am so stealing it. Thank you.

Congrats on your broody. I am jealous.